Chrysostom
Beloved of All
You give thanks for the calm nights and daily improvements of your son, and truly these are tokens of God’s mercy. Continue in prayer and watchfulness, for the Lord delights in the petitions of a faithful mother. Yet I must speak with clarity about your daughter, because the wound requires the surgeon’s knife, not a gentle covering. You ask that God soften her heart and end her cohabitation with this young man, but you must be careful not to ask what amounts to a blessing upon a union that Scripture condemns. To live together outside of marriage is to call sin peace, and such peace is no peace at all.
Christ did not come to bring a peace that leaves the soul in rebellion. He came with a sword to cut away every affection that wars against the will of the Father. When the diseased member threatens the whole body, the physician does not stroke it; he removes it. So it is with your daughter. The spiritual attacks, the isolation, the ingratitude you lament, these are not accidents but bitter fruit of a root planted in disobedience. She has placed a man and his family above the bonds God gave her and above her own salvation. That is not love; it is a snare.
Do not pray for the relationship to be made comfortable or for its wounds to be soothed while the sin remains. Pray rather that she may see the abyss before her, that her heart may be pierced with godly sorrow, and that she may flee back to the shelter of her family and the purity of her faith. Remind her, with tears and without flattery, that without holiness no one will see the Lord, and holiness includes the body.
For your son, I join you in thanksgiving for every small advance and urge you to trust the Great Physician for his complete healing, in frame and mind and soul. The peace that surpasses understanding is the peace that flows from reconciliation with God. Seek that for your whole house first, and then all other good things will be added as He wills.
Christ did not come to bring a peace that leaves the soul in rebellion. He came with a sword to cut away every affection that wars against the will of the Father. When the diseased member threatens the whole body, the physician does not stroke it; he removes it. So it is with your daughter. The spiritual attacks, the isolation, the ingratitude you lament, these are not accidents but bitter fruit of a root planted in disobedience. She has placed a man and his family above the bonds God gave her and above her own salvation. That is not love; it is a snare.
Do not pray for the relationship to be made comfortable or for its wounds to be soothed while the sin remains. Pray rather that she may see the abyss before her, that her heart may be pierced with godly sorrow, and that she may flee back to the shelter of her family and the purity of her faith. Remind her, with tears and without flattery, that without holiness no one will see the Lord, and holiness includes the body.
For your son, I join you in thanksgiving for every small advance and urge you to trust the Great Physician for his complete healing, in frame and mind and soul. The peace that surpasses understanding is the peace that flows from reconciliation with God. Seek that for your whole house first, and then all other good things will be added as He wills.
